Yes, I know Les Paul died, Willy DeVille too.<\/p>\n
Actually, I was going to write about Willy, but I couldn’t find his song "Spanish Jack" online.\u00c2\u00a0 And you need to hear Willy to get him.\u00c2\u00a0 And then see him.\u00c2\u00a0 He was pure New York.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though he never broke through, he’s got fans, I know, because they e-mailed me, asking when I was going to write about him.<\/p>\n
Even more than wrote to me about Les Paul.<\/p>\n
A true loss.\u00c2\u00a0 But Les made it to 94.\u00c2\u00a0 And his achievements were well-documented, and the obits were exhaustive.\u00c2\u00a0 But how many people know Jim Dickinson?<\/p>\n
Anybody can be a fan of the big bands.\u00c2\u00a0 But we musos have our own favorites, who we continue to testify about decades later, still hoping our spark can ignite a conflagration.<\/p>\n
Ry Cooder eventually got some notice.\u00c2\u00a0 Albeit as a film composer and midwife to the Buena Vista Social Club.\u00c2\u00a0 But once upon a time, Ry was just like Jim Dickinson…\u00c2\u00a0 You had to be deep into it in order to know.<\/p>\n
Ry was on "Memo From Turner".\u00c2\u00a0 His first album made no impact, but check it out, for his take on "One Meat Ball" if nothing else.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was the second album that was the artistic breakthrough, mining similar territory to the first, but sounding anything but slick, sounding positively alive.<\/p>\n
If you don’t know it, I can’t explain "Into The Purple Valley" to you.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t reference another act, another album, because there’s nothing like it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an amalgamation of songs from decades before, made palatable for a generation that not only grew up on the British Invasion, but underground FM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 We were open to the possibilities!<\/p>\n
"Into The Purple Valley" was co-produced by Jim Dickinson.\u00c2\u00a0 I know, because I stared at that album cover numerous times, I read all the credits ad infinitum. Who had come up with this sound, who made it so perfect?<\/p>\n
Jim Dickinson just died.<\/p>\n
You’ll read that he worked with Big Star.<\/p>\n
But that was not their best album.<\/p>\n
He even played with the Flamin’ Groovies.<\/p>\n
But his main credit is on the Stones’ "Wild Horses", the British band came to the south to get that sound.\u00c2\u00a0 Jim Dickinson provided it.<\/p>\n
These guys are not going to last forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Those from the classic era who still survive are pushing seventy.\u00c2\u00a0 And many are barely remembered, on the cusp of being forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 I was stunned Gordon Waller’s passing didn’t get more ink.<\/p>\n
Jim Dickinson won’t get the obits of Les Paul.\u00c2\u00a0 Or even Willy DeVille.\u00c2\u00a0 But Mr. Dickinson was part of the fabric, part of the vibe, he was a key element of the sound.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn’t Diane Warren, writing for a market.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn’t a hack like Kara DioGuardi.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I’d be stunned if anybody trying out for "American Idol" knew who he was.<\/p>\n
But we did.\u00c2\u00a0 And still do.<\/p>\n
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Yes, I know Les Paul died, Willy DeVille too. Actually, I was going to write about Willy, but I couldn’t find his song "Spanish Jack" online.\u00c2\u00a0 And you need to hear Willy to get him.\u00c2\u00a0 And then see him.\u00c2\u00a0 He was pure New York.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though he never broke through, he’s got fans, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-yZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}